Ten years ago, Ron Mueck had a splashy exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth that scared the living crap out of a few small children we know but also shattered attendance records for the museum. Now, the Australian sculptor comes back to our city to show off six large-scale works that he created since then, some of which have never been seen in North America before, in a show called New Works by Ron Mueck.
The artist’s hyperrealistic sculptures of people, often blown up to giant size or shrunk down to miniature proportions, seem to cast a hypnotic spell over viewers as they ponder the familiar human form made new. Among the works to be seen here is “Woman with Shopping,” a life-sized sculpture based on a woman Mueck saw fleetingly coming out of a subway station in London, wearing Doc Martens and carrying plastic bags full of items as well as a baby close to her chest. There’s also “Couple Under an Umbrella,” a very large sculpture of a middle-aged couple (the woman seated, the man lying down with his head in her lap) dressed for the beach. Ponder the stories of these figures, which seem lifelike enough to move.
New Works by Ron Mueck runs Fri thru May 6 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 3200 Darnell St, FW. Admission is $4-10. Call 817-738-9215.
